1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of date-coded labels, method of date coding, printing bands for date coding and hand-held labelers capable of date coding.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
It is known to use date coding in connection with perishable goods such as meats and produce to indicate expiration times and/or dates. The date code can be applied either to the goods or to packaging for the goods. It is known to date code by words, numbers and/or colors. When colors are used, there is a different color to designate each day of the week. One such system in use in the United States for color-coding perishable goods designates blue for Monday, yellow for Tuesday, red for Wednesday, brown for Thursday, green for Friday, orange for Saturday and black for Sunday.
The following prior art is made of record: U.S. Pat. Des. 514,154; U.S. Pat. No. 4,113,544; U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,503; U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,909; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,910,227.
It is known to date code by using an electronic thermal table-top printer to overprint adhesive backed labels which were pre-printed with colors in zones, with a different colored zone for each of seven days of the week. All of the colored zones of six days of the week are obliterated by overprinting, except for the colored zone representative of a selected day of the week. The overprinting was accomplished either with a thermal transfer ribbon on plain paper or directly on thermal coated paper. In either case, the name of the day of the week was thermally printed adjacent to the colored zone corresponding to the selected day of the week. This arrangement requires substantial investment, requires expensive ink ribbons or thermally coated paper, requires training of unskilled personnel, and requires that the user return to the thermal printer at a fixed location each time the user needs a label or labels.